Edgar Award-winner Harlan Coben brings us his most astonishing—and deeply personal—novel yet. And it all begins when Myron Bolitar's ex tells him he's a father ... of a dying thirteen-year-old boy.

Myron never saw it coming. A surprise visit from an ex-girlfriend is unsettling enough. But Emily Downing's news brings him to his knees. Her son Jeremy is dying and needs a bone-marrow transplant—from a donor who has vanished without a trace. Then comes the real shocker: The boy is Myron's son, conceived the night before her wedding to another man.

Staggered by the news, Myron plunges into a search for the missing donor. But finding him means cracking open a dark mystery that involves a broken family, a brutal kidnapping spree, and the FBI. Somewhere in the sordid mess is the donor who disappeared. And as doubts emerge about Jeremy's true paternity, a child vanishes, igniting a chain reaction of heartbreaking truth and chilling revelation.

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Product Description

From Amazon

Myron Bolitar's father's recent heart attack brings Myron smack into a midlife encounter with issues of adulthood and mortality. And if that's not enough to turn his life upside down, the reappearance of his first serious girlfriend is. The basketball star turned sports agent, who does a little detecting when business is slow, is saddened by the news that Emily Downing's 13-year-old son is dying and desperately needs a bone marrow transplant; even if she did leave him for the man who destroyed his basketball career, he wouldn't wish tsuris like that on anyone. And he's not at all interested in getting involved with Emily again, not even to track down the one mysterious donor who may be able to save the boy. But when Myron learns that Jeremy Downing is his own son, conceived the night before Emily and Greg Downing married, he embarks on a search for someone who disappeared a lifetime ago. And what he finds leads him to a powerful family determined to keep an old secret, a disgraced reporter who may have plagiarized a novel to create a serial killer, a very interested FBI agent, and a missing child.

This is the seventh outing in a series that's been gaining in popularity since Bolitar's first appearance, in Harlan Coben's Deal Breaker. Myron's a bit of a baby, but he's not afraid to get rough when the situation calls for it, he's eminently likable, and his heart's in the right place. The fireworks are supplied by his friend and partner, Win, who really deserves a series of his own, and Esperanza, the lesbian wrestler-lawyer who has finally talked Myron into making her a partner in the business. Like Coben's other Bolitar novels, she's worth every penny. --Jane Adams--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Book seven in Coben's wonderfully rich series (after 1999's The Final Detail), which features sports agent Myron Bolitar, former basketball player and totally believable human being, is all about fathers, sons and the intricate and often painful chains that link them together. Myron, who has just moved out of his parents' house at the age of 34, is worried about his father's health after a heart attack, but it's hard for either of them to talk about the older man's condition. Myron tends to have long relationships with women that end in tears. ("You're in your mid-thirties, single, sensitive, and you like show tunes," says his current lover, a troubled television star. "If you were a better dresser, I'd say you were gay.") Emily, his college girlfriend from Duke who dumped him for a more successful basketball rival, re-enters the picture to tell him that her critically ill 13-year-old son needs a bone marrow transplant, but the only suitable registered donor has disappeared. Can Myron find him? And, by the way--Myron is the boy's real father. The search takes Myron deep into some decades-old unsolved crimes involving another father and son--a sadistic deranged killer and a conflicted newspaper columnist. Myron's deadly preppy friend, Win, is on hand to supply his own frightening brand of violence, and the gorgeous Esperanza Diaz, the former wrestler who's now a full partner in MB SportsReps, supplies wisdom as well as glamour. But the heart of the novel is, as always, the fallible but infinitely appealing, accessible figure of Myron Bolitar--a modern Don Quixote complete with knee brace and cell phone, ready to take on the world's problems. (June) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Most helpful customer reviews

Myron Bolitar, despite the imaginative Dickensian name, is a former US basketball player and now a top sports agent. He has a settled personal and business life and things are going along just fine on a day-to-day basis. However, a meeting with former girl friend, Emily, of some 14 years before is to change his life in the blink of an eye. She reveals that Myron is the father of her 13-year-old son and that she has now divorced her husband who was assumed by all, himself included, to be the father. That the ex also happened to be a national basketball hero and was the very person who literally crippled Myron all those years ago in his first professional game adds to the colourful background to the story. The young son has been diagnosed with the fatal disease Fanconi anaemia, a chromosome instability syndrome with progressive bone marrow failure and an increased risk of cancers, for which the only cure is a bone marrow transplant. The national bone marrow register has three potential matches, two of whom are eliminated due to non-compatibility after further screening. The third just cannot be found and appears to have vanished into thin air.Coben has by now, after about the first four chapters, built an excellent platform for what should be an enthralling story as the search for the potential bone marrow donor begins. At this point "Darkest Faer" has a 5 star Amazon book review rating. Unfortunately the story line becomes increasingly complex and stretches credibility. Serial killers, the FBI, recluse super-rich families and a fictitious murder novel become entwined as Myron uncovers mystery after mystery and comes face to face with thugs, evil doers, and treads on the toes of the authorities. The plot becomes harder to follow with the many tangential issues introduced. What should be a gradual build up of tension becomes a disappointment as the story finally reaches its conclusion. Sorry, but three stars is the best rating for "Darkest Fear".

I read everything: fiction, non-fiction, heavy, light--even cereal boxes, and I almost always stick it out and read to the end of a book. This book was a dismal exception. Harlan Coben clearly thinks he is very clever. The first five chapters of Darkest Fear are peppered with insidious little quips like, "And professional women's wrestling is struggling right now, what with the competition from Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake." Is this supposed to be deep and insightful? Amusing? It is annoying at its best. The characters are shallow and flat (like Myron, for example) or ridiculously exaggerated (like Windsor Horne Lockwood III). The crises are contrived. Dialog is a joke. The last straw for me, the point at which I closed the book for good was at the opening sentences of Chapter 6: "Myron mixed childlike Froot Loops and very adult All-Bran into a bowl and poured on skim milk. For those not reading the Cliffs Notes, this act denotes that there is still a great deal of boy in the man. Heavy symbolism. How poignant." Puh-lease! I assume Mr. Coben (if that's really his name) is trying to be funny and is not trying to be insulting, but what he really is is irritating. Every page that I read of this book was littered with this kind of rubbish! I could not bring myself to read any further, and I would discourage anyone who considered reading anything by Harlan Coben--expecially Darkest Fear.

To begin with, the cover art is terrible. Then we get three pages raving about how good this book is- AND IT ISN'T! The cover informs us that the author has won the Edgar Award... well, you can bet it wasn't for this meandering plot. The book reads as if it is written for fans who already know and sympathize with the hero - but I didn't and I don't. This is sloppy writing. It takes way too long to get into the meat of the story and when you do, it is confusing and you don't give a hoot about any of the characters. In fact, I was wishing that the killer - who is almost absent in the book - would kill off the entire cast. Harlan Coben entertains himself, not the reader.

This is my third Coben book and it is the least good of the three but that is not to say you should not read it. It is still a great tale and it is only that One False Move and Tell No One are masterpieces in quality and this doesn't quite reach those heights.The character Myron Bolitar is back from six other novels (it is not mentioned on the cover or inside the book itself) but too be honest this novel sort of assumes you've gotten to know him so he is not as interesting in this one. In Darkest Fear an ex university girlfriend who left him for his arch enemy reappears and pleads for help to find a bone marrow donor who refuses to donate his marrow to help her dieing son. Myron refuses so she confesses the boy, Jeremy is his son.Of course Myron can not say no now, so puts his sport agency on hold and sets off with his friend Win who also like Myron can beat anyone in hand to hand combat and has numerous contacts, but unlike Myron is rich, very rich. You don't really get to know much about Win in this novel as previously said you really need to have read One False Move first or maybe some of the others in the series. Anyway all indications are that the marrow donor is a sick serial killer who likes to torment the victim's family forever after he has committed the crime. Myron knows he must find him no matter what the cost.Make sure you have read his other novel with the same four key characters as this novel, Fade Away first as if you read this one before reading Fade Away then you will know how Fade Away is obviously going to turn out. Not knowing the Myron Bolitar books were a series when I got this book I made the mistake of reading it first which kind of ruined my Fade Away reading experience.Read more ›